


A Thousand Prompts

by Chaotic_Eclipse



Category: Miss Sherlock (TV)
Genre: 1000 Prompts (A Self Imposed Challenge), A Lot of AU all up in this joint, A mystery, Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Each Chapter Will Focus on Something different, F/F, Pls Pay Attention To The Notes, Rating May Change, Sherlock is rude, Wato's life is exasperation, What Have I Done, Will I finish tihs entire list?, and a disaster, and very gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-07-28 10:03:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16239371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaotic_Eclipse/pseuds/Chaotic_Eclipse
Summary: Exactly what it says on the tin, 1000 prompts and possible Author Regrets.





	1. Variations Of Chemistry

**Author's Note:**

> I've wanted to tackle this for years and now I'm finally doing it. The list is [here](https://www.deviantart.com/alkalinetriogirl/art/ONE-THOUSAND-PROMPTS-160746032) if Y'all are interested in it. If not sit back and enjoy as I see how much of this I finish. This is probably going to be entirely out of order....(As usual none of this is Beta'd so I apologize for any mistakes.)
> 
> First Up 731. Chemistry
> 
> Vampire!Sherlock is a thing in this.

She's bored.

She's bored, and she realizes that being bored on a date means it's probably not going to work out. It's a shame, she thinks, politely keeping her attention on the man in front of her even as she stirs her drink again for the millionth time. He's good looking and smart, has a good job, and is very kind; one might think he's a perfect catch. 

But they had no chemistry.

(If anything her drink had more and the thought makes her cringe inwardly.)

She tries, really, listening as he tells her a story about something that happened once at his job. A story her waning interest refuses to register beyond a word or two here and there, her focus shifting to the bar around them as she catches the passage of people out of her peripheral. She knows what this place is, knows what some of the people are and wonders what possessed him to bring them here, to a place that caters to vampires and the humans that like to mingle with them.

Wato never judges anyone for their preferences and never particularly minded any of the vampires in the city so long as they weren't causing trouble and hurting people. 

So while the equation doesn't equal up in her head about how or why they're here, she didn't comment on it. Maybe he just liked the bar, it had a decent aesthetic and wasn't as loud as some of the others, and the lighting wasn't strobing, just a constant of dark blues and purples that were easy on the eyes.

Maybe he was a vampire himself. The thought draws her up short and she watches him a little closer for a few seconds, her interest suddenly having been piqued for an entirely different reason other than his story. It wasn't any of her business if he was or he wasn't, especially since she's pretty sure she's not ever going to see him again. But she can't deny her curiosity.

For the few seconds it takes a commotion to break out behind her, bringing her attention right back away from her date and to the source of the noise; people, a few of them. Two men and a woman at the front, wandering in like she -- specifically -- owns the place. The crowd in the bar feed into that illusion, moving aside and calling greetings as she passes. She replies with an easy flick of her fingers, a lazy grin with a devil may care attitude behind it.

She's handsome, Wato notes, and deceptively distracting.

"That's Sherlock," her date says, his tone taking on a note of misery Wato understands a little too well. "She's Japan's Master Vampire, been around for so long no one can even put a date on how old she really is...and she never bothers telling anyone."

"Oh," Wato replies, lamely, finding herself still fixated on the woman -- _Sherlock_ \-- as she makes her way through the crowd and to the counter, noticing that the two men with her have since split off and disappeared into other areas. She doesn't bother looking for them, her eyes staying fixated on Sherlock's back. Her sense of style screams money, fancy and partially formal; a black dress shirt and slacks, high heeled boots that just add to her height.

She forces herself to look away, after all she wasn't here with Sherlock, and finds her date staring off at the vampire as well, frowning.

"She's kind of a colossal asshole," he says abruptly, his attention flicking back to her.

It startles a laugh out of her she doesn't expect, and she covers her mouth before it gets too out of her control. "Noted," she says after she struggles to suppress the rest of it, unable to keep the smile off her face. "I'll keep my distance."

"Keep your distance from what?" 

Her eyes widen at the unexpected intrusion, watching as her date's expression twists into one of defeated exasperation. She looks up, finding herself staring straight at none other than Sherlock -- and oh no.

 _Oh no._

Wato's jaw works, words fleeing her even as she tries to catch them.

" _You_ ," her date supplies with barely concealed venom, and Sherlock laughs, musical and mocking. 

_Fuck._

"That's a shame," Sherlock says, leaning against their table and very pointedly into Wato's space. "Here I was rather interested to get to know the woman who was staring at me so intently when I came in." She smiles and it's all teeth and interested amusement that makes heat creep up into Wato's cheeks.

"I--I'm sorry I shouldn't have--" She stammers, and Sherlock quiets her with a subtle cant of her head.

"I'll forgive you if you tell me your name."

It's abrupt, and if Wato wasn't so entirely out of her element, she might have thought it was a little rude. Instead she stares for too few many seconds and then a few too many more until her silence becomes awkward enough Sherlock raises an eyebrow.

"Tachibana," she rushes out as Sherlock opens her mouth to no doubt make some smart remark. "Wato." She listens as the other woman repeats it, low enough Wato can just barely hear it over the music, seemingly committing it to memory. She's quiet for a few seconds after that, studying her almost as intensely as Wato had until her eyes slide off to the side, head lifting as something catches her attention.

Wato is a mix of relieved and sad, finding herself staring at her profile and hoping to attract those dark eyes again. "Well, Wato," Sherlock says finally, and Oh _God_ the way she says it makes Wato almost shiver. "I have to get to work...but I'll see you around."

And with that she's gone, leaving Wato reeling and wanting more all that once.

Now that, she thinks, chugging her drink and smiling awkwardly at her date that really wasn't a date anymore, was chemistry.


	2. Backdrop Panorama

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Panorama
> 
> This is from an AU plot in which Sherlock is a Demon Hunter with too many cats and Wato is an Angel.
> 
> Some angst and some hurt/comfort (Sherlock's brand of it at least.)

She remembers falling, the spiraling dissonance of gravity taking hold on her, something that had always been such a foreign concept to her until --

_(There's a kaleidoscope of faces that pass her by, some casting glances down with looks of quiet pity and wonder, back-dropped by a panorama of skyscrapers and falling rain.)_

She remembers the demon, how quiet and calm and unlike anything she had been told. She was used to scary and aggressive, beings so twisted and dark she could pick them out from miles away with a glance. But this one was different, and because of it she had been fooled with quiet smiles and gentle words, assuaging her fears and accepting her for who and what she was without more than a few moments of stunned silence. There had been more than one human over the years she had made connections like this with, people she had become friends with and watched over as they lived their lives. She thought this would be similar, just another person to nurture and care for.

It wasn't, and for it she'd lost a wing in a desperate attempt to escape the embrace of claws she'd willingly walked into, blacking out under the assault of flash-fire agony of bone and flesh separating. She'd fallen, fallen until the concrete caught her and left her winded and in pain, her blood mingling with the water pooling on the sidewalk she lay on.

She closes her eyes.

When she opens them again it's raining harder, thunder rolling overhead. The sky is darker now, the mottled storm blue cascading across the canvas of gray already there, turning it into something intimidating that sends people walking just a little faster. 

Again, she closes her eyes.

It's cold, and there's people standing around her, haloed by the streetlights now on to combat the falling darkness. It makes her wonder just how many hours have passed from when she fell to now, how many people had passed her by or stopped to look and wonder how they could help her. 

_How do you help a now one-winged angel?_

She doesn't let the bitterness of the thought penetrate her like the cold has, instead letting it wash over her like the rain across her skin. She shivers, clenching her jaw against the throb of pain the action brings. Nobody around her moves or says anything, and she wonders if they think she's dead.

"You're in the way," someone says, voice low and filled with a sense of command instead of exasperation. When she tries to look to see who'd spoken she finds herself face to face with a cat; black fur matted thanks to the rain, with the bluest eyes she's ever seen. It watches her, leaning in to sniff at her cheek before straightening again. Her voice fails her when she tries to speak, limbs heavy and refusing a command to move. The cat beside her trills and looks up, flicking it's tail as boots fall into her line of sight.

"They told me you were dead." It's the same voice, and this time she can look, flicking her eyes up to the woman standing over her. "You might as well be in the condition you're in." 

She tries for indignant and fails, being met with mild amusement. "Sleep," the woman says, bending down and placing a hand over her eyes. "I guess I can take care of you in the meantime, since it's rare for Kento to like anyone so quickly." She doesn't argue that, still too exhausted to try and fight the urge to close her eyes again, the edge of her mouth twitching at the sound of the cat meowing.

When she wakes again she's not alone, feeling weight against her legs that turns out to be another cat. She hears more as she wakes, the quiet thump of paws against wood and the occasional meow. Slowly she sits up, muttering an apology when the cat on her legs wakes to stare at her disapprovingly. Everything hurts, and as she takes a catalog of herself she notices the bandages wrapped around her chest, the ragged wound where her wing had been now tended to.

The black cat from last night is there when she finishes, sitting patiently in the doorway and watching her again. It's not long before she hears someone coming, lifting her eyes in time to see the same woman, almost surprised. _She really did --_

"Who are you?" She asks before she can stop herself, biting the inside of her lip.

"Sherlock," the other woman supplies, crossing into the room and taking up residence on the arm of the couch. "I've never seen an angel up close before, especially not in that condition." Sherlock's eyes narrow, weight sunk into an elbow as she leans over her. "What happened?" The black cat -- Kento -- joins them, hopping up onto the couch and settling beside the cat still there.

"A Demon," she says, touching her bandaged shoulder lightly. "I didn't notice until it was too late."

"You're lucky you got away with just a missing wing." Sherlock straightens, tapping a foot against the carpet. "You're lucky you got away at all, most of the time Angels end up eaten."

She considers herself lucky, hugging herself and quelling the mix of panic and revulsion at the idea of being consumed. "Thank you," she says, her words brining Sherlock's attention back from where it had obviously wandered. "For doing this." The other woman flicks a dismissive hand, looking down at the cat beside her.

"It was Kento's idea." Her eyes flick back up, fixing on her face to study her and she notes the wicked scar at Sherlock's throat, tracing it until it disappears into the collar of her shirt. "You have a name, angel?" 

"I can't remember it," she replies, wringing her hands. "It's been so long since anyone's actually asked."

"Wato, then."


	3. Savor The Taste

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5\. Taste
> 
> More Vampire!Sherlock though a slight variation on her. Also this is pretty much just pure Porn with a tiny bit of plot. Hence the rating jump, there will be more chapters like these as I progress...just less short. I'm not the best at writing smut but I'm trying.

The house is quiet when she returns, the silence and stillness of it keeping her own movements soundless, edging the door open with the tips of her fingers and slipping in through the gap she creates. She knows Hatano isn't home, recalling her mentioning going out with friends earlier that morning. However, Wato is anyone's guess. A new part time job, perhaps, or she'd gone out to the store for one reason or another. Sherlock didn't keep tabs, they had their own lives between the cases they worked. They had their own secrets.

Keyword being 'had' in Sherlock's case.

Of course it doesn't matter to her that Wato knows what she is now, since the younger woman had handled the truth better than most might. There was a learning curve, moments Wato covered her neck when she drew too close, or flinched away when she reached out. It was understandable, and for it Sherlock was patient, withdrawing until Wato opened up again and slowly began to come back to her. She stopped covering her neck, lingered close by her again and watched her not with nervous fascination, but with interest.

Once she'd even caught the younger woman reading a rather raunchy book, leaning over her shoulder when she was engrossed and asking her what it was she'd found. She had the pleasure of watching the way Wato's ears had turned as red as the rest of her face while she stammered at her, clutching the book to her chest. Sherlock didn't judge, but it didn't stop Wato from fleeing the room with a speed that would make most werecats envious.

Wato hadn't been able to look her in the eye for a week after that, but Sherlock has been alive too long to remotely care if Wato wanted to read a risque book about Vampires.

If anything, her only offense came from how horrifically _inaccurate_ it all was. They weren't romantic creatures, they were violent, sadistic and arrogant. But she knew how they appeared to humans; mysterious and seductive. Humans couldn't see the true monsters that lay underneath their skin, not the way a were or another Vampire could.

There was a reason Sherlock was an odd one out, an outlier who associated with weres and humans more than her own kind.

She wasn't like them.

Never had been.

(Never would be.)

Slowly she picks her way down the hallway after removing her shoes, the empty canteen in her bag reminding her of the hunger just beginning to coil in the pit of her stomach.

She'd been out for three hours too long and had unintellegently forgotten to refill her canteen before she'd left. There had been enough to get her through the morning, at least.

Their space was as empty as she had left it this morning, the usual scattering of books and papers haloed out from the chairs they always occupied. Wato hadn't come through to clean yet.

Definitely a new part time job. Sherlock makes a note to at least pick up the relevant papers as she reaches the kitchen and fishes a blood bag out from the drawer in the fridge.

She thinks she hears something as she drinks, a small utterance of a noise that was just too loud to properly muffle. It stops her, eyes flicking from the floor up to the wall in front of her. Silence reigns again, but Sherlock's interest is piqued, listening even as she drains the remainder of the blood from the bag and tosses it. She hears it again as she leaves their shared space, a louder whine that tells her that the current occupant has no idea she's here.

It draws her upstairs; the muffled sounds growing louder the closer she gets until a cut off gasp of her name hits her dead in the chest. If she were alive it would have affected her more, would have had desire stirring in her as warmth that washed through every inch of her body. But now it only stirs her silent heart into a sluggish beat. If she were alive....sometimes she's glad she's not.

_Sometimes...._

"Having fun without me, are we?"

Wato freezes, focus entirely pinned on the ceiling above her as Sherlock so lazily leans against the door-frame. It's rude, she knows, to walk in on someone enjoying a bit of private time in their own space; in -- technically -- their own home. But the sight is worth it, seeing the younger woman sprawled out half dressed with her fingers buried inside herself, the heady scent of arousal thick in the air. Wato swallows and very slowly drags her attention from the ceiling to Sherlock, jaw working helplessly as she no doubt tries to find the words to respond or tell her to get out.

A ruined moment, in Wato's mind.

For Sherlock it's anything but and she pushes away from the door frame, pulling the door shut behind her as she closes the gap between her and the bed. "I didn't say you had to stop," she says, reaching the bedside in time to rest fingers against Wato's wrist, pausing her hand in the beginning motion of withdrawal. "It'd be a shame for you not to finish." She knew how close Wato was, how even as ruined as her orgasm might have been, it would be simple enough to urge it back.

" _Sh-Sherlock?_ " Wato wheezes and Sherlock smiles, slipping her fingers down across Wato's wrist, along the back of her hand to press against the fingers still buried in her, eliciting a gasp. It's the answer to the half asked question: What are you doing? She bends down to press a kiss against Wato's knee, then moves, easing herself onto the bed to rest between Wato's legs. The other's attention is fixated on her, watching every move she makes with a confused sense of need that wants so desperately to go straight to her core.

Shame about the lack of blood flow, really. Since donor blood never got her going enough, not like feeding off a living, breathing person.

She puts the thought out of her mind, instead leaning down to trail a line of kisses up Wato's inner thigh, watching the way she reacts out of the corner of her eye. She's breathing faster, teeth sinking into an already bite swollen lip that Sherlock wants to bite herself. All in due time, she thinks, attention flicking down as she kisses the back of Wato's hand. Gently she urges her fingers free with one of her own, tracing it across her palm, allowing the rest of her fingers to join as she curls them around her wrist, thumb lazily stroking along the heel of her palm. It's then she leans forward, drawing her tongue across one slick finger, hearing the way Wato's breath catches in her throat. She watches her again, as she takes one finger into her mouth to suck it clean, then the second and the third.

Wato's pulse is racing against her thumb by the time she releases her hold, letting her hand go and licking her lips to savor the taste still on her tongue. She doesn't give her a chance to collect her thoughts, instead leaning down to press a kiss to a hip bone and slip lower, rolling her tongue over her clit. Wato jerks against her, a moan catching in her chest and a hand twitching down to curl against Sherlock's scalp. She does it again, slower, feeling the way Wato shudders and her fingers flex against the back of her head.

She's so close and Sherlock knows exactly how to undo her.

Easing her weight into her knees she curls one hand around Wato's thigh, the other trailing fingers through her folds before pressing one inside her, then a second, drawing a full throated moan out of the woman below her as she curls her fingers and catches on what she wants. Wato jerks again, whimpering as Sherlock starts a rhythm of thrusting her fingers and rolling her tongue in abstract patterns across her clit. She listens as Wato's breathing gets more ragged, each moan coming out more desperate as she closes back in on what had previously been torn away from her, feels as the other woman rocks against the motion of her fingers and presses up into the wandering drag of her tongue. Wato comes apart at the same time Sherlock closes her mouth around her clit and sucks, hips bucking sharply against her face as the other woman muffles a near shout, shuddering and clenching down to capture the fingers still inside of her, the hand in her hair gripping just hard enough it would hurt if she was still human.

But it doesn't and she keeps moving her fingers and sucking gently on her as Wato rides the rest of it out, gasping and moaning her name like a prayer. It's beautiful and she stops only when the other woman stills, slowly withdrawing her head and her fingers, bringing them to her mouth to suck them clean. Wato shudders and she hums, looking up to find the other woman still watching her, feeling the fleeting touch of her fingers before they tighten around the back of her neck.

She knows what the other woman wants before she has to say it, and she crawls up her body, trailing kisses across the exposed line of her stomach and her sternum, skipping over the fabric of her bra and running the edge of her tongue across what little of her collarbone is exposed. She finds her mouth shortly after, pulling her lower lip into her mouth and sucking on it before dragging her teeth gently across it as she releases it then kisses her for real, not bothering with anything teasing. It's deep and desperate, more tongue and teeth then anything else, Wato's fingers digging into her shoulder blades.

"Had I known you felt this way," Sherlock mutters between kisses, nipping at Wato's bottom lip again. "We could have done this a lot sooner."


	4. A Dragon's Truth

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 924\. Dragon
> 
> This is kind of a shameless shout out to a project I'll be starting next month. I don't know what else to really add to this one beyond if for some crazy reason you haven't finished the show there's spoilers???
> 
> Also I'm sorry for the lack of Watolock in this one and that it's so short, it'll happen from time to time.

_"The Dragon is always watching."_

It's a phrase she's heard thrown around more than once since coming to The Dock, whispered fervently between people and scrawled across more than one white board before someone else erases it. It makes her wonder who it is, what kind of person it is whose earned a name like 'The Dragon.'

If asked people talk about righteous fury and burning away the corruption with such reverence it makes her wonder of it was another name for Irikawa. The guiding star, the dragon. A force for good, for stopping all the wrong and wiping it off the face of the earth in favor of peace.

_"The Dragon will devour the stars."_

It's something else she's heard muttered by a traitorous few people when they think no one is paying attention. They never notice her, so unassuming and quiet people think she's left or was never there in the first place. This makes her wonder if it's not Irikawa but Sherlock, and the thought makes her tangle her fingers together and twist until the tips turn white and go numb.

She doesn't doubt that Sherlock would kill Irikawa, she's already taken lives, ruined others -- what's one more?

"Sensei, who is the Dragon?" She asks, watching as Irikawa's eyebrows raise in muted surprise before she smiles, quiet and pacifying.

"You've already met them," Irikawa replies, and Wato thinks. She thinks of every person she's met since she came here, trying to place the image of a person who could wear that moniker. There's no one who sticks out among anyone else, and assumes it's because whoever it is doesn't want to be picked out.

They want to be unassuming like Wato.

_Maybe she was the Dragon._


	5. Unwilling Paranormal Investigation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 418\. Paranormal
> 
> Happy spoop day~ For everyone whose read my other story A Study In Aerodynamics you'll recognize Jade from that one bit, for everyone who hasn't don't worry you don't have to have read it to enjoy this. It's a purely self indulgent not sequel that I wrote on a whim cuz why not. It was spawned from the idea that Sherlock has always been able to see, feel and hear ghosts but chooses to pretend they don't exist because it's easier on her.
> 
> I tried for psychological horror, idk how well I did. I hope you enjoy~

A sharp rapping pulls her out of her reading, the words on the page skittering sideways and blurring, her eyes unfocusing on them as she tries to pin point the noise. There's no one home but her, recalling earlier that morning how Hatano said she'd be out all day, and two days ago Wato went home to visit her family. It left her with plenty of time to read and work without interference.

Or so she thought, frowning as the rapping begins anew, just as insistent. She's not expecting anyone, her phone sitting silent on the table; the last text she received was from Wato an hour ago, complaining about some man her family wanted her to meet. Apparently Wato telling them she was, in fact, already seeing someone didn't go over well or she'd been blatantly ignored in favor of parental interference. Either way, Sherlock masked her annoyance with it by sending back a remark about how 'having more friends' certainly wouldn't hurt.

(They both know how well that would go, but Wato still found humor in it.)

So it's not the police, either, the entire fiasco with them having had well over a year to die down and be swept under the rug after she'd been proven innocent -- and for a bit dead -- so she's been able to exist unaccosted. At least as unaccosted as she had been before, once again being called on to deal with the bizarre and confusing. There were still a few higher ups who didn't trust her but she'd done nothing to give them an excuse to try and arrest her again so they had little choice but to deal with her.

After all, without her they wouldn't get very far.

It's the third round of rapping that finally forces her out of her chair and out of her apartment, her curiosity having finally gotten the best of her. The last person who'd shown up unannounced recently had been her brother, and he had a habit of just coming in if she didn't answer after the first set of knocks. Because she usually didn't hear it, and he'd learned very early on that just coming in and talking at her was the best way to get her attention.

She reaches the side door just as the rapping stops, and she stills to listen, hearing the shift of a windbreaker on the other side. She pulls the door open a second later and stops, blinking out into the afternoon light. There's no one in her line of sight and for a moment she's a mix of perplexed and annoyed before a small throat clears and she looks down, raising her eyebrows at the familiar face.

"Jade?" She asks, leaning her shoulder against the door frame. "How did you find this place?" The girl looks just as she had the last time she'd seen her, wise for her years but still happy-go-lucky in the way kids her age are.

"I-um, I talked to some of the police officers and asked if they knew you and they directed me here," she says, wringing her hands and looking at her feet. "I said I needed your help..."

"My help?" Sherlock parrots, raising an eyebrow. "You went out of your way to talk to the police to find me, but didn't think to ask _them_ for help?" Normally her clients are people Hatano knows or has met through one of her social gatherings, her brother or once an old friend of Wato's. To have someone show up like this, even if it's someone she's met before, is odd.

"They wouldn't believe me!" Jade protests, swinging her hands down to her sides.

"What makes you think _I'll_ believe you?" She asks, watching as Jade pouts and stares up at her with a look that might work on anyone else but her. She can almost hear Wato scolding her in the back of her mind and -- relenting with a roll of her eyes -- she straightens and waves Jade in. "Fine. I'll hear you out."

"Thank you!" She says, slipping by her. Sherlock shuts the door behind them, directing Jade towards her apartment with a gesture. The girl heads inside and she trails behind, again shutting the door as they cross back into her space.

"Have a seat," she says, crossing back to her chair and her abandoned reading. She waits until Jade has hoisted herself up into the chair nearest her before she takes her own seat again, leaning forward to close her book. "Now," she says, leaning back in her chair and fixing her attention on the girl across from her. "Let's hear this story of yours."

For a long moment Jade sits, wringing her hands -- a habit she picked up from her mother, Sherlock remembers watching her do it over and over -- as she gathers her thoughts. "A friend of mine went missing after some boys at the high school dared her to go spend the night at some abandoned apartment building." There was more than a few of those around, places most people avoided because of superstition or the thugs that hung out around them.

She passed a few on her wanderings, ignoring the uncomfortable feeling that crept up her spine each time she got a little too close. "And you want me to help you find her."

"I do! It's just, I heard rumors that this place is haunted..." Jade trails off and Sherlock has to struggle to hold back her laughter, masking it by clearing her throat.

"Oh," she says, once she's sure she can trust herself not to sound as amused as she really is. "Haunted huh?" Part of her is concerned the girl got kidnapped, stranded, hurt or just lost. "I don't believe in the paranormal," she adds, turning her attention to her nails. "It's all just a trick of the mind."

"No it's not! I've seen them. You just don't believe cuz you've never experienced it!"

Sherlock's eyes flick up from her nails to Jade, her eyebrows raising in flat disbelief.

"It's true!" The girl persists, puffing her cheeks up. "When I was coming home one day I saw a lady on the side of the road and when I looked away then back she was gone! And there are places in my school that you can see and hear stuff!"

"You were seeing things," Sherlock replies, looking away. "When you convince yourself someone is there, your mind puts it there. So if you think you see or hear something, effectively you have, just what your mind supplies." She doesn't expect the pillow, jerking as it impacts with the side of her head. For a second she stares, offended, before she throws it back -- with significantly less force than she would someone else -- hitting Jade square in the face.

It's almost comical, the look of blatant surprise on the girl's face when the pillow lands back in her lap, and Sherlock doesn't bother to restrain the edged smile she gives her in response.

( _You're being childish, Sherlock_ , The Wato in the back of her mind says, shaking her head. _Stop_.)

She doesn't apologize.

"So will you help me or not?" Jade asks after she recovers, that same pleading look from earlier begging her to say yes.

"Did you go to her house, talk to her family? See if she came home?" She asks, Jade nods, looking as stubborn as ever. "They haven't filed a report with the police?" That didn't make any sense, unless it wasn't unusual for their child to not come home for days on end or they just didn't care. She was willing to bet it was the latter rather than the former.

"They don't care, it's why she stays with her aunt most of the time but her aunt is away." Jade affirms her thought and Sherlock hums a low note, leaning her head against her hand.

"Fine. But I still don't see why you didn't tell the police." It was part of their job to find people after all, and while Sherlock had dealt with her fare share of missing persons it was always brought to her attention through them. "Though I suppose I may have been involved anyway, so really all you did was cut out the middle man." Assuming they didn't find her somewhere in the building, terrified and hoping someone would come get her.

"I didn't want them to think I was lying or making it up if they searched the building and didn't find her. I mean I guess if you won't help me I'll have to, or go look myself."

"I never said I wouldn't help you," Sherlock says, quietly against the idea of Jade going in to whatever building this was to search it herself. It was dangerous enough if the two of them went together, but at least Sherlock held experience Jade didn't.

She flirted with danger more often than some might think was sane.

"So you will?" The question is hopeful, and Jade sits up with it, staring at her.

It's a tense few seconds before Sherlock relents -- again, this time with a heavy sigh, rolling her eyes ceiling ward to gather what patience she possessed. "Yes, I'll help you. But if we don't find her, or it's too dangerous you have to involve the police." There's no room for argument, no wiggling her way out and Jade nods.

"Okay." There's a pause, and Sherlock side eyes Jade as she wriggles in her seat. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet," Sherlock replies, standing and grabbing her purse. "Do it after we find your friend," she adds, securing it across her body and pulling her coat on after. She's halfway to the door when she realizes she's forgotten her shoes, stopping in the middle of the room to retrace her steps and grab them. Jade's already a head of her, out the door and waiting by the front, Sherlock joins her shortly after, heading out with her after locking up.

=====

Sherlock drives; not because she likes to, but because it's convenient. The car Kento gave her gets more use by Hatano then it does her, the older woman was out far more and Sherlock didn't mind getting a cab or hitching a ride with Reimon or another officer when they needed her. But this time Hatano had gotten a ride with her friends, leaving her the car should she require it.

She didn't think she would, at first, but now she's a little thankful.

(Something nags at her, instinct telling her that it would be better to have something right there. A way to get out, to get away faster than having to wait for a cab -- or run. She wants to ignore it, to pass it off as foolish paranoia that she has no use for...and she might have, if it wasn't the second time she's felt like this.

The first time she wished she did a lot differently. This time she's learning from her mistake.)

They don't talk much, beyond Jade's occasional direction and Sherlock's half muttered remarks about other drivers and pedestrians alike.

"It's there," Jade says after a long stretch of silence, pointing out the windshield at a building Sherlock remembers from one late night walk. It hadn't been her best choice, and she distantly recalls the meow of a cat in obvious distress. An involuntary chill crawls her spine and sinks into her bones as she parks at the side of the road, staring out.

 _Had to be this place_ , Sherlock thinks, burying the memory and the threatening shudder underneath a layer of forced nonchalance. _I hate this place._

"Let's get this over with," she says, climbing out of the car and making her way onto the sidewalk. Jade joins her a moment later, lingering close to her side. "Having second thoughts?" she asks, smirking as Jade shakes her head and puts on a brave face.

"No." With that the girl marches off, squaring her shoulders and holding her head high. Sherlock trails behind, holding on to her amusement instead of the prickling sensation of being watched. She passes it off as a pedestrian further down the way she doesn't notice, pausing when Jade stops right at the property line. She shifts from foot to foot, leaning between the breaks in the fence. "This place is so creepy."

Sherlock huffs, walking by the girl and straight into a cold that wouldn't be out of place in the dead of the worst Hokkaido winters. She stills, scowling and pulling her coat tighter around her.

"Why's it so cold?" Jade mutters from behind her, and she casts a glance over her shoulder, noticing the way Jade trembles with it.

"The sun doesn't really reach this lot," she explains, making her way towards the entrance of the apartment. "Makes it colder." Jade makes a noise like she doesn't really believe her, but Sherlock offers no further comment on it. It's not exactly true, but she's not exactly lying either.

Not entirely.

(She's intimately familiar with the sensation, cold spots in otherwise warm rooms. She told herself it was a draft, moved away from it even as the lingering sensation of a touch stuck with her like a chill that wouldn't abate.)

They enter without fanfare, the silence of the building an eerie departure from the city noise outside. There's something unsettling about it, a weight pressing in on the edges of her consciousness that just adds to the sense of _wrong._ She knows the history of this place, can count how many deaths happened her, the very property saturated with a history of violence and accidents. It's no surprise this place was abandoned, that people stopped moving in no matter how low the rent was.  
It wasn't worth their lives.

"Stay close, last thing I need is two lost kids." Jade doesn't need to be told twice, the girl practically sticking to her side as she makes her way down the nearest hall. "We don't have a lot of time before dark," she says, testing the nearest door and finding it locked. It was a small blessing, there, narrowing down their search area. It meant the missing child didn't have a lot of places to go, but it made her that much more concerned. "So listen and look for any signs of your friend. We have three floors to cover."  
Three floors in four hours, she thinks, staring off down the hall. The lone window there offers just enough light to see by, but she knows this place will be an abyss come night, and she has no desire to remain here that long.

Each door on the first floor turns out to be undisturbed, any would be vandal or thief having thought better of a place that was thought to be cursed. Sherlock didn't share in the superstition of most people, but even she would have rather not had to come here. It was dangerous, she had no idea how strong or weak the structure was, didn't know how bad the fire that burned through a second floor apartment ended up being.

It made the fact that they had to navigate that next questionable, and something she already started to judge the moment they reach the stairs. She feels the sensation of being watched again, a tickle at the back of her neck that she refuses to entertain by looking. "It's just your imagination," she says, catching Jade peering behind them out of the corner of her eye.

( _A shadow crawls across the wall beside her, and Sherlock pretends it's nothing but a trick of the light, angling her head away so she doesn't have to watch it's progress_.)

"What made your friend even listen to those boys anyway?" She asks as they head up the steps, the encroaching darkness of a lack of electricity forcing her to fish her phone out to use as a flashlight.

"I don't know," Jade responds, and she feels the pressure of the girl's fingers tugging at the sleeve of her coat. "I didn't hear the whole story, just what I told you." It makes her chalk it up to some form of blackmail or just plain stupidity. The same things that drove people to do things that ended them up hurt -- or worse. "She doesn't believe in ghosts either, she probably thought she'd be perfectly fine here."

She thinks she hears something underneath the murmur of Jade's voice, a second distant one, muffled by the presence of the door she has yet to push through. "She thought wrong," she says, shouldering open the door and stepping into the hallway proper.

( _There's a distant thought of a fight, voices carrying and settling as a suffocating blanket over the rest of the residents. An image of smoke, and the constant droning of a fire alarm_.)

Sherlock pushes it aside, her gaze falling on the blackened spot of hall. She traces it up along one wall, then the other, pin pointing the apartment where it started. The door hangs awkwardly on it's hinges, and she stops to assess the damage. She can smell the mold hiding underneath the burned wood, the same mold that likely permeates the entire premises now with no one to keep it in check. It doesn't look dangerous or unsteady, but the ominous creaking she hears from deeper inside the apartment tells her it's not a wise idea to try. It's only a matter of time before the floor inside there collapses, and she doesn't want to be the one to do it.

Up here the silence is different, charged and expectant, like the air before a particularly bad storm. It's disturbed only by the creaking that starts to slowly sound more like steps as it nears where she's still lingering. She turns away before it gets any closer, shaking her head. "No telling when the floor in there will give way," she says, gingerly picking her way across the hall to the door on the other side. It's also slightly ajar, swinging open with a press from her fingers.

"Did the fire only burn that one apartment?" Jade asks suddenly, the sound of her voice making her tense. "It looks like it did."

She looks for an explanation to it, distantly recalling the headlines about a freak fire that experts couldn't quite figure out. The entire apartment had burned, but beyond the spot in the hallway and the wall surrounding the door, nothing else had been disturbed. "Good fire suppression," she says, finally, casting a glance over her shoulder. Jade's response is another not quite convinced sound, but she accepts it and follows her as she wanders in to the apartment she'd been looking in.

"Mimi?" Jade whispers into the space, passing by her and peering into the other room. "Mimi, it's Jade. We're here to come get you." She's not surprised when the only response is silence, her mind picking up on the creaking again, hearing the way it almost seems to sway side to side. Like someone shifting their weight. A woman died in the fire, she recalls suddenly, after having a fight with her boyfriend.

Some say he started it then left, but the police weren't able to prove it.

"What's that noise?" Jade asks, shaking Sherlock from her thoughts and forcing her to listen. She realizes the creaking has stopped, morphing into a scratching sound she immediately dismisses as mice, rats or some other small animal foolish enough to venture into the walls with the intent of shelter.

"Probably an animal," she replies, turning and making her way back out of the apartment. Across the hall she catches a glimpse of a figure in the space between the door and it's frame, blackened and grinning. It reaches out as she leaves, skeletal fingers splaying, searching. She studiously pretends it's not there, fixating on the window at the end of the hall to swallow the spike of cold fear stabbing in her chest. Jade, thankfully, doesn't seem to see it, wandering off down the hall. Sherlock follows after her, ignoring the rasping whisper from behind her that urges her to look back.

 _You're seeing and hearing things_ , she reminds herself, disappointed in her own failing. She'd simply put that figure there, conjured it up when she thought about the reports.

( _It's a comforting lie, the same she's been telling herself ever since her first brush with death all those years ago_.)

A shadow leers at her from the next apartment they pass, the door laying on the floor. She fixates on that, flicking a look over the hinges and watching as Jade slips right on in without a blink, stilling only briefly by where the shadow flickers and warps, coiling around itself like so much smoke. She doesn't move, it's presence keeping her out in the hallway and watching Jade's back as the girl repeats the calls for her friend until the figure looms in her line of sight, forcing her to look down at her feet.

She checks her phone instead, putting distance between her and the doorway, clicking her teeth when she realizes she has no signal. It's not surprising, just annoying. It makes her wonder if Wato has tried to text her again, the other woman likely confused that Sherlock didn't answer immediately as she had been. More than likely she would guess Sherlock was otherwise occupied and didn't hear the phone.

(" _Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone, okay?_ " Wato had told her the day she left, leaning up for a quick kiss when the taxi driver looked away to check something.

She'd done something stupid.)

"Sherlock?"

Her eyes flick up from her phone, finding Jade standing there in front of her, a worried look on her face. "I'm fine." A lie for Jade's benefit. The pressure she'd felt when they came in has grown worse, coiling around her and squeezing until her head throbs and she feels like she's trying to walk through water. The next apartment yields nothing again, and Sherlock feels a kind of hysteria that makes her fray around the edges, drumming her fingers against her thigh as every little sound starts to make her jump.

By the time they reach the stairwell to the third floor she wants to run, having to fight every instinct to just stand at the base of the steps and look up, dread sitting as a weight in the pit of her stomach.

"Mimi?" Jade calls again, hovering at her side and seemingly of much the same opinion. Neither of them want to go upstairs and look, both knowing that whatever was up there waiting wasn't something they wanted to encounter.

"J-Jade?"

Sherlock forgets her dread at the sound of the response, high and thin with terror and she surges up the steps, pushing through the dizzying press of the presence that latches on to her the second she hits the landing. Jade's friend is there too, curled in the corner between the first and second set of stairs. Mimi looks up at her with a mix of relief and terror Sherlock knows she mirrors, and she can't muster up anything comforting to say. They're not safe.

"Mimi!" Jade rushes by her to knee by Mimi's side, hands hovering over the other girl like she's not sure what to do. "Are you okay?"

"I fell and hurt my leg," Mimi sniffles, rubbing her arm across her face. "I can't walk."

"I'll carry you," Sherlock interjects, shrugging her shoulders in an attempt to get rid of the weight there, cold fingers slowly closing themselves around her throat. It drags her back, and she forces herself to lean forward against it to keep herself stable, gritting her teeth against the hysterical laugh that threatens to bubble up and spill free. Mimi didn't fall, she thinks, wobbling under the weight and the sudden light headedness. She was pulled.

Just like what was happening to her, until she steps forward and away from the edge of the steps, the presence lifting abruptly and leaving her staggering. She stills there, staring down at the floor and taking a moment to gather herself again --

A thunderous crash echos from above them, and Sherlock moves without thinking, a mix of terror and adrenaline driving her as she picks Mimi up and runs, gracelessly clattering down the stairs and only checking once to make sure Jade is with her. Mimi clings to her, face buried in her shoulder as she runs.

She runs until they're outside again, Jade outpacing her and making it out onto the street seconds before she does. She's sweating and thready with panic, fumbling twice with the keys before she gets the doors unlocked and all of them in the car.

=====

It takes an hour of sitting around at the hospital for her to start to calm down, spending the first half of it twitching and jumping at every noise or person passing by. She places a terse phone call to Mimi's parents, that goes about as well as she anticipated it would. Sherlock doesn't argue with them, pointedly delivering what information she needs to, then hanging up without waiting for a response.

"A broken ankle," A Doctor tells her two hours in, her nerves having finally allowed her to relax and come back to some sense of herself again. When he asks her what happened she tells him a half truth, that Mimi had taken a fall down the steps and landed wrong. It's enough of an explanation, and she response to the question of her relation with a lie about being a family friend.

They all leave well after dark, exhaustion having settled in behind her eyes and made them burn. She drives Mimi back to her aunt's house per her request, smirking slightly when Jade tells her that she'd help Mimi inside.

"I'll stay with her," Jade adds, glancing back to make sure her friend has gotten inside. "Crutches are a little hard to get used to, and I don't think she wants to be alone. I'll call my brother and let him know."

"Alright," Sherlock says, slipping back into the driver's seat. She doesn't offer her number, doesn't tell her she can call her if she needs anything because Jade is resourceful enough, Jade has a brother that for all his short comings still seems to care about her.

"Um. Sherlock?"

She looks back at her, humming a note in question.

"Thanks."

Sherlock grins and pulls the door closed, sitting and waiting until both girls are inside before she makes the drive home.

=====

Two days later Wato arrives home while Sherlock is engrossed in her notes, she hears her come in and stop in the doorway, a surprised noise catching her attention enough to allow her to swim up from the mass of things she still needs to write down.

"I wasn't expecting you to have company," Wato says, and Sherlock pretends she doesn't hear, focusing instead on the quiet scratch of her pen across the paper.

"Sherlock said I could come hang out provided I didn't make a lot of noise or get in her way." Jade answers for her, and Wato huffs a laugh.

"I figured you'd be out in Shibuya enjoying the Halloween celebration."

"Nah," Jade says, giggling a little. "Sherlock and I had enough of an adventure to last me until next Halloween."

"Did you?" Wato asks, and Sherlock can hear her coming up behind her before the other woman's arms circle around her shoulders. "What did I miss?"

"I'll tell you later," Sherlock responds, setting her pen down to turn into Wato's half embrace. "How was your visit?"

Wato rolls her eyes, exasperation momentarily seizing control of her amusement. "It was good but I really wish my parents hadn't made me have dinner with that guy. I'll tell you the rest later," she says, leaning more against her. "I'm just glad to be home."

"Yea, Welcome home."


	6. Drunk Misadventures?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 351\. Drunk
> 
> This spawned from a conversation between my partner and I over discord a weekish? ago, so this is pretty much all thanks to her. Basically Sherlock catches Wato coming home drunk and gets more than she expected.

Sherlock catches Wato as she comes stumbling in, stopping in her descent of the staircase to watch as the other woman peers down each end of the hallway like a burglar casing a potential target. She's drunk, Sherlock realizes after a moment, watching Wato's shoulders sag in relief when she sees their apartment door shut and that Hatano had gone to bed for the night. She's drunk and she doesn't want anyone to see her stumbling ungracefully in and kicking her shoes off as she sways in a futile attempt to keep balance she doesn't have. If no one is awake, no one will ask questions.

Unfortunately Sherlock is, hair damp from a shower she'd finished only a few minutes before. Fortunately, she's not about to ask questions, everyone is entitled to do what they wanted, whether it be partying or drinking or whatever else people did to relax. She remembers Wato's flippant remark about going out to see a friend 'So I hope you don't need my help for anything.' Then she'd been gone and Sherlock had done little more than watch as she'd retreated through the apartment door.

Now it's well after midnight and Wato is stuck between berating herself for...something, Sherlock can't hear, and laughing helplessly as she trips over the carpet and nearly falls, forced to use the coat-rack as support. She's half out of her coat when she realizes, finally, that she's not as alone as she had hoped.

Wato's eyes meet Sherlock's and she freezes, mouth hanging open as all the color drains from her face. 

"Sherlock," she says, slow and more than a little slurred -- scratch that, Wato was a little beyond drunk, flirting dangerously close to 'smashed' as Kento would say -- "I thought you were..." she waves a hand, frowning when the words won't come.

She offers nothing in reply, slowly raising an eyebrow as Wato stares at a spot somewhere around her feet, her face scrunching up in thought. When the other woman looks up, her other eyebrow has joined the first, and she struggles to maintain a look of curious engagement rather than exasperation. Wato looks like she expects either a dozen questions or a scathing remark, both of which Sherlock has in copious supply, but none of which she bothers to dig for.

From the looks of it Wato has suffered enough humiliation for one night, and Sherlock is tired enough she's feeling generous. Instead she just watches as Wato struggles out of the rest of her coat, silently debating if she should just go back upstairs, or slip by her and back into their apartment. Neither option wins out, as her and Wato end up just staring at one another. The younger woman sways a little again, leaning on the banister for support and Sherlock remains awkwardly rooted to her spot, shifting her weight.

Distantly she can hear Hatano's antique clock tick-tick-ticking away the seconds as they stand there, waiting for the other to make some kind of conscious decision. Normally she's good at this, normally by now she'd have slid past Wato and left the other woman to her own devices. Maybe she's mildly concerned, having never seen Wato in this state before, maybe she's more tired then she originally anticipated, her exhaustion making her snappy decision making sluggish.

_Maybe, maybe, maybe ---_

Wato makes the first move, dragging herself up the steps to where Sherlock stands one unsteady motion at a time. The younger woman has to concentrate to do it, eyes on her feet as she lifts each one, pausing to test to make sure she's not about to fall -- except she does, and Sherlock is there, catching her around the waist and grabbing the banister to keep her own balance as she hauls Wato back into some semblance of a standing position. Wato's fingers dig into her shoulders, her eyes wide with a mix of surprise and -- Sherlock hazards a guess -- embarrassment.

"I'm going to let go now," Sherlock warns after another minute of awkward staring, waiting a few more seconds to make sure her words have processed through the alcoholic haze no doubt still clouding Wato's mind. But she doesn't get that far, Wato's fingers seizing her by the collar of her shirt and pulling her in to a rather ungraceful kiss. Her nose hits Wato's, her teeth catching on the inside of her lip hard enough it stings and she freezes up completely. 

Her brain stops, eyes wide, heat burning in her cheeks as she attempts to kick start her body back into motion, any order she tries to give it failing to reach the limb. Wato pulls back, and Sherlock continues to stare dumbly, jaw working with a rare failure to find words. It's her turn to be put on the spot, she knows what she needs to say, but she can't.

So Wato kisses her again, taking her silence for permission or -- Sherlock doesn't know what, she can't even begin to fathom what the other woman might be thinking, any and all inhibitions thrown to the wind in a choice so impulsive it put Sherlock to shame.

Against her better judgement Sherlock returns it, letting Wato pin her against the banister instead of politely pushing her away, instead of telling her that she's drunk and they shouldn't do this. Instead she tastes the alcohol still on Wato's lips -- something cheap and bitter that under any other circumstance would make her recoil -- shivers as Wato's fingers tangle in her hair and force her harder back against the wood now digging sharply into her spine. She let's it go on, let's it deepen until Wato's tongue is in her mouth and Sherlock becomes acutely aware of the heat of the other woman's body pressed against hers. Everything else bleeds away, leaving her swallowing down the little noises Wato let's slip, letting her push impossibly closer until Sherlock isn't sure where one of them ends and the other begins.

It's overwhelming, and for a second Sherlock feels almost like she's drowning, washed away by a riptide she didn't feel coming.

Then it's over, the other woman pulling away, leaving them both gasping for air. Sherlock's heart is pounding, blood rushing in her ears as she struggles to even attempt to process anything that just happened. Wato smiles at her and leaves her there, sluggishly making her way up the rest of the stairs. 

Sherlock let's her go, sitting down when she realizes she can't trust her legs. She stays like that for an indeterminable amount of time, listening as she hears Wato shuffle around upstairs until silence reigns again and Sherlock finally gets up and heads back downstairs into the apartment. 

She sleeps with the memory of Wato's lips, hands and body burned into her mind, she sleeps with the mess in her mind she tries again and again to sort through. She knows how she wants to feel, but what she ends up feeling is the exact opposite. So she packs it all away and leaves it until much, much later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be a direct sequel to this that I'm already in the process of writing.


	7. Does Pepto-bismol stain?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 18\. Pepto-bismol 
> 
> Like I promised here's the sequel to the last chapter. It got away from me, like, really away from me. (Why are you like this Sherlock?)
> 
> Also, If anyone looked at the list (linked in the first chapter) and has a request for any of the prompts not covered already drop me a line on Tumblr and I'll see what I can do!

She wakes to the stuttering back-fire _bang_ of a car exhaust, blinking out into the empty room and not bothering to chase the fleeting remains of a dream she might have been having. Whatever it was, it didn't matter now that she was awake and sitting up, stretching out the stiffness of spending too long in one position. She's still tired, but she knows the dregs of it still holding on to her will dissipate as soon as she gets up and starts her day. She's still in the middle of a case, after all, still has plenty of work to do that sits in a pile on her desk waiting for her attention to return to it.

Instead she remains right where she is, sitting half under her blankets and staring at her hands laying across her lap as she lets her mind wander. It's not at all productive or useful for her to return to earlier that morning, absently lifting her hand to touch fingers to her lips at the memory that comes flooding back. She still doesn't know what to think of it, stuck between wondering if Wato had feelings or if the other woman had simply just done something on impulse for the hell of it.

She frowns, scribbling the thought out. There were some things she was better off not trying to make a judgement call on, and Wato's feelings involving her was one of them. She'd found out exactly where she stood when Wato kissed her, every feeling she'd been trying to ignore or box away coming back to kick her squarely in the face with enough force to bruise. 

Now she was going to have to scramble to suppress it all again, to try not to think about how it felt to have Wato pressed so impossibly close against her each time she looked at the other woman. Sherlock needed to know how Wato felt about her when the other woman was sober, not alcohol fueled and -- whatever that was. Asking her, however, was an entirely different matter all together. For all Sherlock's bluntness it was the one question she wasn't sure she'd be able to ask.

The answer was something that could make or break a lot of things.

Of course she knew _ignoring it_ was just as bad, but it doesn't stop her from packing it all away neatly in it's box again and shelving it for the second time. Dwelling on it was impacting her ability to do her job, so until her and Wato had a proper moment to sit down and figure out how to broach the subject, she was going to leave well enough alone.

_Wato --_

She gets up and leaves their space fueled by the realization the younger woman is probably miserably hungover.

Sherlock finds Wato exactly where she expects her; in the bathroom, leaning against the edge of the toilet and clearly regretting every choice she'd made the night before. The other woman, again, doesn't notice her and she takes a moment to glance around. There's an upended bottle of pepto-bismol on the counter, the pastel pink pooling across the white marble and merrily dripping onto the tile beneath. It might stain, and she allows herself a short moment of annoyance as she files it under 'clean as immediately as possible' before she makes her way deeper into the bathroom. She gathers that Wato accidentally spilled it when she was searching for the painkillers she sees just behind the upended bottle, beside an empty glass.

"Hatano-san," Wato whines, stopping Sherlock in her tracks, "remind me never to drink again." She smiles a little to herself at being confused for the older woman, hazarding another guess that Hatano had found her first and left to get her a blanket or some tea to help settle her stomach.

She stops at the sink to refill the glass, being mindful not to drag her sleeve in the pink puddle still slowly spreading further across the counter and seeping into the grout between the tiles on the floor. She sacrifices the hand towel, dropping it over the mess on the floor to both soak it up and stop more from dripping down. Later she'd have to soak it to try and get as much of the pepto off it before she left it to the mercy of the washing machine. It's not the best course of action, but damage control for spilled medicine isn't high on her priority list at the moment.

Wato blearily looks up at her when she dangles the glass in the corner of her vision, looking momentarily surprised to see it's her instead of Hatano. "Sherlock," she says, straightening as much as she's able. "I thought you'd still be asleep."

"Car woke me up," she replies, waving the glass a little at her in an attempt to finally get her to accept it. "You look like hell."

The other woman huffs a laugh, rolling her eyes and finally taking the water from her, carefully nursing it. "Thanks," she says, "I feel like it too. I regret not stopping after the first couple I had." Sherlock bends down to her level, leaning her forearms across her knees, watching her. "I meant what I said though, I'm never going to drink again."

She's not quite sure she believes it, since it's a thought some people have when hungover as Wato is yet they go out and repeat the cycle the second they have the chance, but for the sake of being at least slightly polite she doesn't voice her thoughts. "Your liver will appreciate it," she says instead, straightening and going for the paper towels underneath the sink, tossing the now mostly empty bottle into the trash. There's no point to it anymore, and she's pretty sure it might have expired anyway.

They lapse into silence as Sherlock cleans the mess up on the counter, the white staining through pink more than once before she's managed to wipe most of the puddle up. Thankfully it doesn't seem to have left a lasting impression, and she's pleased she managed to get to it before it had a chance to really set in.

"Um, Sherlock?" Wato asks, breaking the silence just as she's putting the paper towels away and wiping up what the hand towel hadn't absorbed already. She glances at her, raising a questioning eyebrow. "Did--Did anything happen when I came home? I felt like something did but I can't--I can't quite remember."

It's exactly the last question she wants to be presented with at the moment, and her expression freezes on her face, her mind scrambling to make sure it doesn't crumble into something obvious that would give it away. Part of her screams at her to tell Wato the truth, then ask her what it was even about, but she doesn't. She doesn't, turning away and rising to her feet again to wring the towel out in the sink, turning the water on and soaking it before wringing it out again and again until the water runs clear. It's something mindless to occupy herself so she doesn't have to look at the confusion written all over Wato's face. "Not that I know of," she lies, making sure all the excess water is out of the towel before she hangs it over the side of the hamper tucked on the opposite side of the sink.

"Oh," Wato says, and Sherlock risks looking at her, noticing that the other woman's face is scrunched up in thought again, just like earlier. "I guess I was imagining things then."

_You weren't_ , she thinks as she bends down to take the empty glass away from her again, setting it back where she'd found it when she first came in here. "It's possible." The words taste like ash on her tongue, chalky and bitter and burning, but she sticks to them. Sticks to the lie to spare Wato the embarrassment she knows the woman would suffer if she came out and told her. It wouldn't spare her later, if the truth ever did come out, but for now she didn't need it compounding on the misery she's already dealing with.

"You shouldn't stay on the floor," she says after a moment, holding her hand out to help the other woman up, "I'll help you back to your room." It's not something she normally does, and Wato looks at her almost like she's expecting her to withdraw her hand with a cheeky smile and a remark about bringing her a pillow.

But what Wato expects doesn't happen, and when Sherlock's expression doesn't change, when she stays the way she is and waits patiently -- letting the silence stretch between them until it becomes nearly suffocating -- Wato finally takes her hand and let's her haul her up to her feet. The other woman's balance, unsurprisingly, still isn't up to her normal standard and it leaves Sherlock shifting her weight as Wato ends up leaning heavily against her again. She stays like that, clinging to her, face buried against her shoulder as she lets a likely wave of dizziness and refreshed nausea pass. Sherlock does her best to keep herself steady, breathing evenly and remaining perfectly still despite the urge to do more than simply hold the other woman's hand.

"M'okay," Wato says after a moment, words muffled in the fabric of her shirt. "I'm okay," she repeats when she straightens, looking up at her. Sherlock doesn't say anything -- can't say anything, as any useful words have chosen that moment to once again abandon her as they both stare at each other from inches away for a second time in so many days. In the end all she manages to do is nod, looking away to avoid the way Wato is studying her face. 

It takes several minutes to make the short walk from the bathroom to Wato's bedroom, the younger woman frequently needing to stop and lean against her side to re-orientate herself before they can continue on. Sherlock says nothing the entire time, making none of the usual complaints Wato might be expecting out of her.

"I'm sorry," Wato says when they finally reach the room, Sherlock noting the steaming cup of tea sitting on the side table waiting for her. Hatano must have come by and saw that Sherlock had taken over and brought it and she makes a note to let the older woman know how Wato is doing later. 

"Don't worry about it," she replies, standing aside as Wato gingerly crawls back into her bed and hides under the covers. She lingers a moment, unsure whether to stay or go before deciding leaving might be the best option, let Wato sleep it off and come down when she was ready. Sherlock is halfway to the door when Wato stops her again -- _again._

"Sherlock?" Wato sounds so small, so unsure of herself that it brings Sherlock's focus from the hallway back to the woman behind her. "Could you -- I mean you don't have to, I know you're busy and I just wasted a bunch of your time, but...could you stay just for a few more minutes?"

_I do have work to do, you're right_ , is the automatic response that she doesn't give voice to.  "Drink your tea," she says instead, making her way back over to the bed and sitting on the edge of it. "I'll stay until you fall asleep again." She doesn't look at her when she speaks, focused instead on a spot on the carpet.

"Thanks," Wato mutters, and Sherlock hears her shifting around behind her to take a few sips of the tea before she settles down again.

Sherlock stays for as long as she said she would, and then a few minutes longer, finally getting up and slipping out the door when she's sure Wato is fully asleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I've already done seven of these....thank you for your continued support, every comment and kudo keeps me going.

**Author's Note:**

> Catch me on[Tumblr](http://dikhotomia.tumblr.com/)


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